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2.12.2017

So focused was I on reporting yesterday's free day gluttony, I never mentioned that I finished reading (on the evening of Day Eight) the novel "The Circle," by Dave Eggers. It's a deeply troubling tale about social media, corporate tyranny, and mindless millenials, and also an excellent read. So check it out from the library* as soon as you can and read it. I will also happily pay my copy forward to the first person who asks by way of a comment on this blog post (see comment box below).

Today is a transition. Some time late morning or early afternoon today, we transplant ourselves from Sanibel Beach Club (Sanibel Island FL) condo #7C to condo #8D, a building over. "We" refers to me, Deborah, and her brother, sister, and sister-in-law Mark, Julie, and Michelle, respectively, who are all currently in residence at the timeshare. The latter three people arrived yesterday afternoon, from Sarasota.

Yesterday was Deborah's and my dietary free day for the week, as my regular readers know, and last night we all went out to the Island Cow eatery for some hedonistic dining. But that's behind us now and we'll resume healthy habits today, gradually purging the acquired toxins and adipose tissue over the next couple of days.

We cannot do much today until after the transition to the new abode, but after that happens, I am proposing a trip to the nearby "Ding" Darling nature area for a look/see.

Phase 1

I walked the five mile round trip to the Sanibel lighthouse this morning, accomplishing my daily fitness goal. Nobody else wanted to go with me due to anxiety about the looming transition to the adjacent condo building sometime after 10 AM, but it turned out this was unwarranted worry. When I got back to the condo at almost exactly 10 on the dot, the group was on the lanai waiting for word from condo management on when we should move. A lady from condo staff knocked on our door and told us it would be at least a half hour before any action would be needed on our part. So we came down to the pool for a half hour and that's where we are now.

Phase 2

We're in the new condo unit now. It's a mirror image of the old one. I'm sitting next to Deborah on the mirror image couch, facing west now instead of east. Her sister Julie's in the kitchen making her world famous (in my world anyway) guacamole. I have a couple turkey burgers frying up in olive oil on the stove. These will comprise the lion's share of my lunch, along with the Larabar I just ate.

I am at the pool again. I am not going to say I ever get bored of sitting by the pool, especially when I can work on writing while doing so, but I have definitely had my fill of sitting by this pool. It's just gravy now. Warm, sunny, tropical, awesome gravy.

In the interval between lunch and this episode of poolside lacadaisica, we all went over to the aviary in a nearby neighborhood where there are a bunch of caged parrots and other tropical birds. Deborah, Julie, and I checked out bikes from the condo office and rode the four blocks or so the the place, whilst Mark and Michelle walked. For a quarter, you can buy food pellets and hand feed the ducks, ibises, and other waterfowl that mill around in a little shallow pond behind the parrot cages.

"That's Naegleria heaven right there," I said of the pond to no one in particular, though Mark heard me and asked what I meant. "Naegleria is a brain-eating amoeba that lives in muddy, warm tropical waters like this pond," I explained. "In fact, every year Naegleria kills more Americans than Islamic terrorists do." [#fact]

I made a concerted effort not to touch any of my mucous membranes before we got back to the condo, where I cleaned my hands with a generous dollop of hand sanitizer in the condo office. I washed my hands again with soap up at the condo and felt mostly Naegleria and Salmonella free by that point.

A new crop of visitors to the Sanibel Beach Club arrived today. Some of them were at the pool and I realized they were Trump supporters as I picked up on some of their conversation. They were saying lots of disparaging and derogatory things about other people and seemed to have an inflated sense of self-entitled superiority, hallmarks of your average American Trumpie. I pitied them but then also completely forgot about them after we left the pool area.

Deborah and I had a romantic 1.25 mile walk up the beach after that, 0.25 miles longer than our walk of a couple days ago. It really seems like Deborah's chronic foot pain is not bothering her as much as it used to.

When I told Deborah as much, she said, "It hurts, but definitely not as much as it used to."

"Is it going to flare up later?" I asked. "Like you'll be lying down and all of a sudden it will get inflamed."

"It did that earlier," she said. "Before we went on the bike ride."

We discussed what we might do for dinner tonight.

"I would really like to make dinner at the condo," I said. "To use up the leftover food before we leave here."

"I just really don't want to be in the kitchen," Deborah said.

"Let's play it by ear," I said. "It's just that a lot of places don't have good food options for us and I am a little tired of the Island Cow."

"I like the Island Cow," Deborah rebutted.

"Oh, I like it too," I said. "It's just that we go there a lot because it is reasonably priced, and so I am just a little tired of it is all."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," I said. "Well, let's see what the rest of the group wants to do. If they go out somewhere within our price range, we can opt to go, or just make dinner at the condo whilst they are all out."

When we finished our walk, we decided we still wanted to be on the beach, so we got beach chairs from the condo and came back out to face the late afternoon sun in the western sky. When Deborah got chilly, we went back in.

I lied down on the bed in the master bedroom of the new condo and tried to do a bit of meditation, but dozed off. I was awakened by Deborah who came into the room to tell me that a decision had been made about dinner...we would make food and eat it at the condo, rather than going out. She then laid down on the bed and fell promptly asleep.

I stir fried whatever suitable veggies I could find in the fridge. Julie made rice and some chicken fingers. We had fresh fruit for dessert. Deborah slept through all the prepping and eating of dinner, but we saved some food for her in a tupperware for later. I made some coffee after dinner for a little jolt. I'll probably have trouble falling asleep, but whatever.

*Note: Trust me, you don't want to download this book electronically or even purchase it online. That will make sense once you read the book. But also, you should support your public libraries, because they are one of the last bastions against ignorance and our crumbling educational infrastructure.